Matthew has an awesome personality, even more now that he’s starting to understand what different emotions mean and is experimenting with them (voice inflections, studying pictures of faces). At home we practice recognizing emotions on his PECS cards during “Calendar Time,” when Matthew gets to pick out a card to show us how he’s feeling (since we do this activity first thing in the morning, he seems to always pick out “sleepy”). Hopefully, this will help him recognize emotions in others, too. I love this poem because there is a common misconception that autistic individuals aren’t capable of recognizing feelings in themselves or others (emotional robots). If you know Matthew (or others on the spectrum), you know that isn’t true at all!

Ha! Reminiscent of the seven dwarves–except you forgot Dopey 🙂 Seriously tho, very observant on how certain situations trigger certain emotions. Something of which all parents are (at times painfully) aware.